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Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Playing with Curves

I really like curvy patchwork patterns but normally avoid them for fear of them being a nightmare to stitch and to get right. Just recently Amy at The Cute Life posted a tutorial to make curvy pinwheels and she makes it seem so easy and with great results! Then there's Jenny at Sew Kind of Wonderfulwith some fabulous patterns with curves.

I have been making progress with some of my WIPs this month although there is still plenty to be getting on with. But last week I just had this urge to drag out some fabric and do something different! So I pulled out these Simply Colour fabrics and some solids.

I had been watching the Curve It Up QAL with Jenny at Sew Kind of Wonderfuland some of the wonderful blocks being created - take a look at the flickr group. I have had her ruler for quite some time and not used it, still put off by the unknown.

So I downloaded the directions for some of the QAL blocks and started reading through! I picked the 4-patch block to start with. The finished size of the block is 16.5". I didn't really want to create a huge quilt as I struggle to quilt large ones, so I was thinking wall hanging or small quilt. So I worked out the maths to make the block smaller. Then grabbed my rotary cutter and jumped in! But followed the wrong workings and ended up with the first quarter being the size Jenny says to make! Duh! So I had one of these at 8.5":

Despite being bigger than I had planned I liked what I saw so I made another one. I then made a couple more that were smaller with the aim of making the full block at the 8.5" size. But I am not sure what I am going to do with all these blocks yet. So, I for now have 2 large and 2 small.

I then picked the rail fenceto play with. Sticking with the finished size of 8.5", I made just 2 rail fence blocks instead of the 4 in the pattern.

The next block was more tricky to break into smaller parts, so I just made the whole thing a bit smaller and omitted the outer portion. This is the 9-patch, I particularly like this one being on point. I might have to make more of this one.

Then last night I completed the log cabin. Again I tried to make this smaller to fit in with the 8.5" size of the other blocks.

Unfortunately, it was obviously getting too late to be working things out and it wasn't until I pinned the finished block on the wall and stood back to take the picture that I discovered I had done something wrong! The logs are not the right sizes and don't line up right. But that's life, it's all an experiment. Not sure I can rectify the problem now so it might have to stay like it or I could try again!

So altogether I have a mixture of blocks, but plenty more to experiment with.

Sewing these gentle curves is surprisingly easier than I had imagined, although probably easier at the intended larger size. The ruler makes light work of cutting the curves too! I guess you could freehand cut them and get a similar result, but in my world no two curves would be the same, where as there is some hope with the ruler!!

The colours and the curves are great, it looks easier to do the gentle curves rather than the drunkards path curves. I must have a look at the ruler. Shouldn't worry about the log cabin just tell people that's how it should be! M